Recovered Voices Speaker Series Opens with Maestro James Conlon

12/20/2017

Crossroads will host an acclaimed speaker series courtesy of the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices at the Colburn School.

On Feb. 6, Maestro James Conlon, the music director of LA Opera, will come to Crossroads to discuss his professional experiences as an advocate and performer of music by composers suppressed during the years of the Nazi regime in Europe.

Conlon’s talk is also the inaugural event of The Younes and Soraya Nazarian Equity & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series, which will help stimulate dialogue among students, educators and community leaders committed to tackling the problems of racism, poverty, war, environmental degradation, educational inequities, religious persecution, genocide and other forms of injustice. The lecture series is an initiative of the Y&S Nazarian Family Foundation, which supports educational causes in a broad spectrum of institutions and through a wide variety of avenues: academic, public policy, community-based, social and artistic programs in the United States and Israel.

The series will continue March 7 with an evening featuring Robert Elias, director of the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices. He will relay the remarkable story of the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Germany, its brief and unique artistic life and its cynical use by the Nazis for propaganda purposes.

On April 10 the School will host Stephanie Barron, senior curator of modern art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and a leading authority on “degenerate art” in Nazi Germany. Elias will then share insights on the historical parallels of “degenerate music” from the same era.

The series will conclude on April 25 with a visit by New Yorker magazine music critic Alex Ross, one of America’s foremost cultural writers. He will examine the influence of émigré composers on Hollywood film music, a contemporary chapter of the Recovered Voices narratives.

“We are thrilled to highlight these important stories at Crossroads,” Head of School Bob Riddle says. “Their messages will resonate strongly with our community as we continue instilling in our students a sense of compassion towards others and a responsibility to improve the world around them.”